Interest in electric vehicles is strong among U.S. drivers — including drivers who live in rural areas. That’s great news, because swapping gasoline and diesel vehicles for EVs is an essential strategy to reduce local air pollution and climate change emissions from transportation. One factor helping rural interest is the … [continued]
Researchers at Purdue University have patented an agrivoltaic array with solar panels that tilt for farm equipment to pass through.
One of the biggest challenges in designing an EV is the limited battery capacity, and until relatively recently, it has kept most EVs on the highway. But, with battery prices lower than they once were and a wider variety of electric trucks hitting the market, that’s changing. With greater outdoor … [continued]
The Biden administration has announced a $5 billion EV charging program for the nation’s major transportation corridors.
A couple of months ago, I read an article that got me to thinking (a dangerous pastime, I know) about rural charging stations. In the article, the author points out that rural America’s lack of electricity compared to the city is a song we’ve heard before, so it’s a problem … [continued]
Originally published at ILSR.org Electric customers in Maine, who are fed up with lousy utility service, can use a ballot initiative to take back their power. For this episode of the Local Energy Rules Podcast, a rebroadcast from the Building Local Power Podcast, host John Farrell speaks with Maine State Representative Seth … [continued]
As I’ve watched the growth of US EV fast charging infrastructure accelerate over the last year or so, I’ve noticed a pattern. Stations almost always get built either in places with high population density or to connect those areas. The needs of people living in small cities and rural areas are usually an afterthought along the interstates, and not a thought at all in other areas. There are often legitimate economic and cultural reasons behind this, but giving urban people more and more infrastructure presents a contradiction.
Originally published at ilsr.org. Rural communities formed rural electric cooperatives as a way to get energy where no one else would provide it. In the 21st century, some cooperatives have found an additional economic benefit in pursuing local renewable energy. In the cases of Farmers Electric Cooperative in Iowa and Kit Carson … [continued]
Today, there’s a battle brewing across the US to reinvigorate a little-used law and bring it into alignment with a modern marketplace riper than ever for small-scale renewables. Like other policies that present compelling local economic value — among them net metering and community solar — PURPA lives or dies by its implementation.
Minnesota’s governor recently vetoed anti-renewables legislation that threatens rural solar development, but the bill’s likely resurgence means the state remains among a growing crop of Midwestern states facing the prospect of heavy-handed limitations on solar growth.
